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Shylock Not a J ew 

By 

Maurice Packard, M. D. 

PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL MEDICINE AT 

NEW YORK POLYCLINIC HOSPITAL 

MEDICAL SCHOOL 



Edited and Supplemented by 
ADELAIDE MARSHALL 



BOSTON 

The Stratford Company 
1919 






^^%%'^ 



Copyright 1919 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



The Aljiine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 

MAR 21 1919 

©CI.A512722 



TO MY BROTHER 

SAMUEL PACKARD 



Shylock Not a Jew 

Twice two thousand years ago, one of 
the greatest of Hebrew prophets looked 
forward to a day when *^the lion and the 
lamb shall lie down together.'^ Two hun- 
dred years ago a philosopher, Hebrew to 
the core in spite of his heterodoxy, de- 
clared that things which have nothing in 
common with each other cannot be under- 
stood through one another. Twenty years 
ago, a deep-thinking, hot-spirited but keen- 
ly sensitive undergraduate, proud of the 
Jewish blood in his veins and of the tradi- 
tions behind him but overflowing with bit- 
terness at a social atmosphere that cast 
these in his face, stood before his class- 
mates ; in scathing invective, he gave vent 
to his indignation against a civilization 
the veneer upon which was so thin that the 
soul of the original animal in the Jew- 
baiter could not but show through, nay 
more, even be blessed with the sanction of 
the college authorities. To him the lion 

[1] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

and the lamb might be reconciled more 
readily than the so-called Christian and 
his quarry. The voice of the prophet is 
heard no more in the land; nobody reads 
the words of the philosopher; but the cry 
of the younger generation of finely tem- 
pered, intensely suffering Jews is eter- 
nally audible to the sensitive ear. 

Could the same young zealot to whom 
we have referred have looked forward 
twenty years, might he not have seen a 
token here and there that the crust of pre- 
judice is breaking through! Or would he 
have read these signs with an active cyni- 
cism and believed that the words of the 
seventeenth-century philosopher applied 
to the Jew (the Just) and to the Gentile 
(the Unjust)? 

Let us sincerely imagine ourselves in 
his place and look with him into some of 
the causes and manifestations of the spirit 
of anti-Semitism and see if, like Tenny- 
son's Death, it may not turn into a rosy, 
blooming boy when once dealt a healthy 
blow. 

[2] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

A study of the history of Jewish per- 
secution is not calculated to stimulate com- 
placency in the reader. Ever since the 
days of the philosopher Schleiermacher, 
nations and individuals have considered 
themselves justified in considering the 
Jew an object of reprobation. **To per- 
secute and molest the Jew seemed to be 
the act of a good Christian. ' * ^ The char- 
acter, teachings and history of the Jews, 
even their prophets, and in fact every- 
thing Jewish, have been and are at present 
attacked. 

Measures and regulations against the 
Jews, unrivalled by the canonical decrees 
of Popes Innocent III and Paul IV, have 
been proposed by Protestant theology 
and German philosophy. That grand and 
learned world of Lessing, Abt, Kant and 
Herder, the great messenger and teacher 
of universal himianity, talked the language 
of the church fathers and stirred up hate 
and persecution against this already over- 
pBrsecuted race. 

Pius VII, the head of the Catholic 

[3] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

churcli, who, in consequence of the Eestora- 
tion, once more reigned in the papal states, 
re-introduced the Inquisition. This teacher 
of the brotherhood of man and the doc- 
trines of love strove to drive out their god- 
lessness, as he termed it, by means of the 
auto-da-fe, and ordained that the Jews 
should forfeit their only freedom, which 
had been enjoyed under French rule. 

After the Napoleonic wars, the Jews of 
Eome had to forsake their luxurious homes 
in all parts of the city and return to the 
squalor and unhealthfulness of the Ghetto. 
Journals and pamphlets raged against 
them, as if Christendom could be saved 
only by the destruction of God's chosen 
people. 

In Austria, the restrictions which were 
imposed upon the Jews carry us back 
again to the Middle Ages and the Spanish 
Inquisition. Those benevolent regulations 
of Joseph II in regard to compulsory 
school attendance and practical religious 
instruction were carried out, not to pro- 
mote culture but to torment and injure 

[4] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

those against whom they were directed.' 
Everywhere there were Jew-streets ( Juden- 
strassen) and everywhere Jewish quarters. 
Nor is all this persecution and oppres- 
sion past history. It has been re-enacted 
every century, every decade, every day. 
The pen has been as mighty as the sword ; 
and Germany with her Stoecker, France 
with her Drummond and England with 
Professor Goldwin Smith have not neg- 
lected their weapons. More lasting a form 
of persecution than violence has been mis- 
representation in literature. When an 
author wished to glorify Sand and his 
murder of Kotzebue, if he wished to praise 
his own religious spirit, he did not 
fail to add that Christian hate would call 
down a day of judgment upon the Jews, 
*Hhe accomplices of financiers who worked 
the ruin of the state.'' Even gentle and 
pious Chaucer left a record of his anti- 
Semitism in a vilification that might still 
be fruitful of results we-re it not counter- 
balanced by excessive catering to the su- 
perstitions of early Christianity. 

[5] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW . 

Assume for a moment that this prej- 
udice had its origin in theological differ- 
ences. It does not need the arguments of 
a Madison Peters to show that the basis of 
this conception is false. Nor has the 
Unitarian or the Theosophist paid the 
same penalty for his deviation from the 
orthodox path. Moreover, no Jew has ever 
suffered with more dignity and heroism 
than Benjamin Disraeli, in spite of the 
breadth of his convictions. 

Dante pictures a race which at the re- 
volt of Lucifer took the part neither of 
God nor of their fallen leader. In punish- 
ment they may not even enter Hell lest 
they boast of their martyrdom. It would 
seem then that persecution, misunder- 
standing, oppression, any form of martyr- 
dom are marks of honor and can be at- 
tached only to those who represent a def- 
inite cause. So practically impossible is 
it to attach to the whole body of Jews at all 
times any one definite ground on which 
they have been at variance with the com- 
munity in which they have lived, that we 

[6] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

are almost led to think that they form an 
exc'.eption to the great principles of per- 
secution and we look for other reasons 
than the theological or the historical. 

We find two. The first is to be found in 
the words of Spinoza already quoted. The 
Jew and the non-Jew, in order to under- 
stand each other more thoroughly, must 
have more in common with each other ; and 
the fact that there are more mutual bonds 
of interest today than ever before is also 
coincident with the fact that persecution 
is less virulent. Under the stress of great 
emotions, nations even as anti-Semitic as 
Germany and Austria, Eoumania and Rus- 
sia will lay aside normal prejudices and 
bind themselves more closely to those 
whom they have formerly visited with 
their persecution. By this token, when 
this present scourge of war shall have been 
lifted, another is likely to return, which 
will affect the whole Jewish people, falling 
most heavily upon those in Europe and 
Asia, but not unf elt in our own community 
— a violent resuscitation of anti-Semitism. 

[7] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

As nations, so individuals, when on the 
brink of physical, moral or financial fail- 
ure, will call the Jewish doctor, lawyer 
or financier. 

The second reason is ethnological. It 
lies in the great composite Jewish tem- 
perament. Believing, perhaps theolog- 
ically, that it represents a chosen people, 
a peculiar race, it has grown more and 
more within itself, using its growing power 
more and more introspectively, cultivating 
an isolation the responsibility for which 
one may lay at the door of Jewish exclu- 
siveness and another to the Phariseeism 
of the Gentile. 

The small boy and the overgrown bully 
will always find their representative types. 
The Jew will never be a bully. He is tem- 
peramentally unfitted for any warfare of 
this nature. Functions that he has been 
forced to develop as means of self-defense, 
such as his proverbial keenness at a bar- 
gain, have become overdeveloped through 
the evolution of generations. Controver- 
sially he is efficient, and his very tendency 

[8] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

to get the better of his opponent in an ar- 
gument does not increase his popularity. 
His imaginativeness makes him keenly 
sensitive to physical pain, exaggerates a 
natural breadth of vision into the prophetic 
power of the seer, and intensifies every 
act of unfriendliness into an instance of 
colossal hostility, until it practically wills 
into being the actual forms of persecution 
which it dreads most, from the pogrom of 
a Russian village to ostracism from a sum- 
mer-resort. 

In our study of the growth of Jewish 
persecution we have noticed the effect of 
misrepresentation in literature, from *Hhe 
legend of the wandering Jew who eternally 
suffers for his brutality to Jesus of Naza- 
reth.''" To bring about a better under- 
standing between the Jew and those who 
interpret him only through the mirror of 
the printed page, there is fortunately com- 
ing about a reform in literature, partic- 
ularly in fiction. We are ready for the 
glimpses of Jewish home life that Sidney 
Nyburg and Abraham Cahan are giving 

[9] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

us. The popular conception of the Jewish 
type to those who have never met it has 
been gained from Fagin, from Daniel De- 
ronda and from Shylock. Fagin, with all 
due respect to the Hibernian Isle, might 
as well have been Irish. It has been told of 
more than one judge that, after many years 
on the bench, he has said to a Jew who 
has been brought before him for burglary, 
*^You are the first of your race I have ever 
convicted for a crime.'' Daniel Deronda 
was at best a hybrid snob ; and his creator, 
sympathetic as she was, had no adequate 
appreciation of the idiosyncrasies of the 
Jewish character. 

Nor had Shakespeare. Shylock, as we 
shall prove to you, was neither a typical 
Jew, a probable Jew, nor a possible Jew. 
In order to understand this character, let 
us clear our mind for a moment of precon- 
ceptions and read as if for the first time 
the story of that immortal play, *^The Mer- 
chant of Venice.'' 

Transported to beautiful Venice, we are 
introduced at once to one of her leading 

[10] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

merchants, Antonio, and to his friend, the 
fortune-hunting Bassanio. Antonio was a 
man of means but very careless with his 
money, in order, probably, to stand well in 
society. He seemed to be a very conven- 
ient source of supply for his spendthrift 
friends, among whom was Bassanio. This 
Bassanio had squandered his own and a 
goodly share of his friend's fortune, and 
was now, besides, heavily in debt. 

At the time of our introduction to him, 
he was again financially embarrassed. He 
resolved to put an end to all these pecu- 
niary obstacles by marrying a rich heiress. 
In order to win the affections of this lady, 
he applied to his friend Antonio for a loan 
of three thousand ducats wherewith to rig 
himself up with attractive fineries to make 
a pretty bait, and to enable him to make 
the journey. 

At this time, Antonio also was out of 
money and had no real or personal prop- 
erty on which he could raise the sum re- 
quired. But, desirous of promoting his 
friend's conspiracy, he bade him find some- 

[11] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

one willing to lend him the requisite 
amount with Antonio 's prospects as secur- 
ity. Bassanio, therefore, went to the man 
whom the outside world seeks when it 
wishes to borrow money, Shylock the Jew. 
As a member of the proscribed Jewish race, 
he necessarily enjoyed an unsavory rep- 
utation. He was known to be cunning and 
avaricious, and yet, strange as it may 
seem, out of many wealthy merchants, 
most of whom were Christians, this man, 
despite his evil reputation, was sought to 
advance the three thousand ducats to the 
scheming fortune-seeker. While Shylock 
was meditating upon the strength of the 
security, Antonio himself appeared. An- 
tonio, who had hated his race, had spit 
upon his beard, had called him misbeliever 
and cut-throat dog, had even kicked him 
from the threshold — insults which Shylock 
had endured patiently (for is not suffer- 
ance the badge of all his tribe?) — that same 
Antonio now applied to him for a loan! 
Little wonder that Shylock expressed sur- 
prise. But Antonio, nothing moved by the 

[12] 






SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

recollection of his former treatment, re- 
plied that he was as like to call him so 
again, to spit upon him and spurn him as 
before ; that, if he advanced the loan, Shy- 
lock was to bear in mind that it was to his 
enemy and not to his friend. 

Shylock took up the gauntlet thrown 
down by Antonio. He now determined 
upon a strange move. His heart clamored 
for revenge. He would loan money to his 
enemy, to the man who had reviled him 
and his race, to the man who represented 
in himself all that was inimical to the Jew 
and all that had embittered Jewish life. 
No interest would he take if the money 
were returned in time. But if the money 
were not returned in time, then he should 
have the right to cut a pound of flesh from 
off the body of his debtor. 

Antonio, positive that he should be able 
to meet his debt and undoubtedly believ- 
ing that among all his wealthy Christian 
friends he would be delivered from the 
clutches of the Jew, should he, perchance, 
not be able to meet his obligation, signed 
the bond. ^3] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

But in the meantime, while Bassanio was 
preparing for the capture of the fair Por- 
tia, Shylock was robbed — robbed of his 
daughter, of Jessica, the only tie left, the 
only link that bound him to his beloved 
wife, Leah, now in the grave. He was de- 
serted by his daughter and robbed of his 
money. To heap insult on insult, Jessica 
renounced her faith; she voluntarily left 
her home to become the wife of a Christian, 
Lorenzo, whom, for the purpose of dra- 
matic economy, Shakespeare has made an- 
other of Antonio 's friends. Her unnatural 
conduct, her deception of her father and 
her unfilial expressions become her merits 
and the hope of her salvation. 

Fate favored Shylock 's thirst for re- 
venge. For now at the very acme of des- 
pair he learned that his enemy, Antonio, 
could not repay his debt and his life was 
at the Jew's mercy. Among all his Chris- 
tian friends, apparently not one was wil- 
ling to stake the three thousand ducats to 
save Antonio's life. Truly this is the 
teaching of love. 

[14] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Standing at bay, stung by the reproaches 
of all around him, rejected by his own 
flesh, Shylock made a desperate resolve to 
have at least revenge. How eloquent is his 
rehearsal of the wrongs to himself and to 
his tribe ! 

' ' He hath disgraced me and hindered me half 
a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my 
gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, 
cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and 
what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a 
Jew ,eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, 
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed 
with the same food, hurt by the same weapons, 
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same 
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter 
and summer, as a Christian is ? If you prick lis, 
do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not 
laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And 
if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we 
are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in 
that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his 
humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a 
Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian 
example? Why, revenge. The villainy you 
teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard, 
but I will better the instruction." * 

[15] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

But to the very last, Antonio accused 
him of every evil, denied him every virtue, 
and boasted that he would die rather than 
be humble or even respectful to a Jew. 

Shylock insisted upon the pound of flesh. 
The Duke of Venice was undecided. He 
required legal aid. A judge in disguise, 
the heiress Portia, now Bassanio's wife, 
appeared. The case was heard, and the 
judge maintained that the bond was valid. 
Shylock might have the pound of flesh, 
but he was cautioned not to shed a single 
drop of blood nor to cut a trifle more or 
less, for, if he did, death should be his 
penalty and his goods should be confis- 
cated. Shylock, baffled, demanded his bare 
principal. It was refused, and the court 
pronounced judgment. 

First, half of his fortune was to be 
given to the faithless daughter, who had 
renounced him, and the other half to the 
state. 

Second came his greatest punishment. 
He must forego his religion and become a 
Christian. Finding no means of escape, 

[16] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Shylock groaned forth a piteous consent 
and staggered heart-broken from the 
court. 

The play apparently ends with the trial 
scene, but on raising the curtain of imag- 
ination we again see Shylock, saddened by 
his misfortunes and sitting alone in his 
deserted home. Heartbroken and with 
bent head, he totters on the Rialto, where 
the same Antonio again spits upon his 
gaberdine with added malice; the crowd, 
as before, showing no respect for his gray 
hairs, still hoots and jeers, pulls his beard 
and calls him Jew and cut-throat dog. The 
ladies, as they pass him, catch their 
dresses lest their perfumed clothes be con- 
taminated by his touch. The men with 
scornful looks point the finger of ridicule 
at his broken step, and the Venetian crowd 
still mock at his reverses. 

Shylock is far from perfect. He is hu- 
man, but with all his defects he stands 
upon a higher plane of morality than the 
others. *^I look on Shylock,'' says the 
studious actor, Irving, ^*as the type of a 
[17] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

persecuted race: almost the only gentle- 
man in the play and the most ill-used. ' * ' 

Whatever we think of this theory, we 
must admit that Shakespeare throws out 
strong hints that seem to justify such an 
opinion. 

The world of the sixteenth century still 
knew little of the Jew, nor did it try to un- 
derstand him. In the popular mind, the 
Jews were a race of parasites, the slayers 
of humanity's Saviour, earning their exis- 
tence by preying upon society. Some of 
the peasantry even believed that the Jew 
was a four-footed animal. This ignorance 
in England could be accounted for on the 
plea that the Jews had been nominally ex- 
pelled since 1290, three hundred years be- 
fore Shakespeare's time. 

But there is a striking superiority in 
the character of Shylock over Barrabas, 
the Jew of Malta, to whose nature no 
evil deed is foreign. Unless the picture of 
the Jew that Shylock is to represent had in 
some way satisfied the prejudiced expec- 
tations of the populace, the character 

[18] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

would have been hissed from the stage and 
Shakespeare sent to the Tower or stoned 
to death by the savage mob of the Eliza- 
bethan age. 

Hazlitt, whom we still read and with 
whom your modern critic compares unfa- 
vorably in our estimation, says, *^It seems 
that the poet, whenever he is going to 
make a feeling or a passion stronger in 
Shylock's nature than avarice, remembers 
just in time that he cannot afford from a 
dramatic point of view to disregard the 
popular prejudice against the Jews.'' 

Shylock had his weaknesses, but he is 
at least a man. 

^*He is only a man whom nature bids to 
hate his enemy. It is true that this piece 
would have been a satire on Christianity 
had Shakespeare meant to portray Shy- 
lock's enemies as its representatives."' 
Shakespeare made Shylock lay bare many 
a defect of the Christians. When Antonio 
and his friends cast suspicion on Shylock 's 
motives, Shakespeare instantly hurls back 
at them this rejoinder: 

[19] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

'*0 Father Abram, what these Chris- 
tians are 

Whose own hard dealings teaches them 
suspect 

The thoughts of others!" ' 

The bankrupt Antonio is a poor-spirited 
creature with the heart of a worm. He 
never pays back the three thousand ducats 
to the cheated Jew." 

Shylock is grasping, but what a scramb- 
ling after money do we detect among the 
others, what eager hunt after heiresses, 
what greed after the Jew^s money, and 
what a shameful desertion of a friend by 
all the Venetian Christian merchants for 
the sake of three thousand ducats! Did 
Bassanio ever return the money which he 
borrowed for his fortune-seeking trip? 
Lorenzo is nothing more than the accom- 
plice in a most infamous burglary and 
would under the government of any civ- 
ilized country be condemned to not less 
than fifteen years in prison. 

Heine tells us that it is true ** Shylock 
loves money, but he does not hide his love 

[20] 






SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

— he cries it aloud in the market-place ; but 
there is something that he prizes above 
money, satisfaction for a tortured heart, 
a righteous retribution for unutterable 
shames; and, although they offer him the 
borrowed sum, tenfold, he rejects it; yea, 
offer him the three thousand, aye, and ten 
times three thousand ducats, he refuses, 
preferring to have the pound of his 
enemy's flesh.'' Shylock is revengeful; he 
is deaf to entreaty for mercy. But what 
pity had Antonio and his friend shown 
him, when they ^ laughed at his losses, 
scorned his nation and cooled his friends," 
when they denied him the barest human 
rights'? What pity had he experienced at 
their hands from the day when he first 
learned by painful lessons that he was a 
Jew, to the day when they publicly spat 
upon his beard and gaberdine, kicked him 
from the doors and called him cut-throat 
dog? What mercy did they show when to 
his offer of friendship and to his complaint 
of unjust treatment they replied that he 
should remember that he had loaned this 

[21] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

money not to a friend but to an enemy! 
What love did they show him when the 
sanctity of his home was violated, when 
they robbed him of his only child and 
enticed her from the religion of her 
fathers ? 

It is not surprising that revenge should 
get the better of that patient sufferance 
which characterizes all his tribe. 

^^Shylock indeed loves money, but there 
are things which he loves still more, among 
them * Jessica, my girP.'* Although he 
curses her in his rage and would see her 
dead at his feet with the jewels in her ears 
and the ducats in her coffin, he loves her 
more than ducats and jewels. Debarred 
from public intercourse, an outcast from 
society, thrust back upon a narrow domes- 
tic life, Shylock is left only devotion to 
his home, a devotion which is manifested 
in him with the most touching humanity. 

WTien in the trial scene, Bassanio and 
Gratiano declare their readiness to sacri- 
fice their wives for their friend, Shylock 
says to himself, not aloud but aside, 

[22] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

** These be the Christian husbands. I have a 

daughter ; 
Would any of the stock of Barrabas 
Had been her husband rather than a Christian. ' ' 

Very strikingly Shakespeare contrasts 
their readiness to give to strangers their 
wedding-rings with Shylock's profound 
grief over the robbery of the ring his be- 
loved Leah had given him before their 
wedding. 

In viewing Shakespeare's Shyloek we 
must take into consideration the condition 
of the times. Although it was the age of 
good Queen Bess and the Augustan period 
of English literature, it was still the mid- 
dle ages when Mary Queen of Scots was 
sent to the Tower and heretics were 
burned at the stake. It was the era when it 
needed little provocation to draw the 
sword; and barbaric cruelty was revealed 
in punishment by the law, for mutilation 
was a common penalty. It was a time when 
the Divine Eight of Kings held sway and 
Catholic Spain was mistress of the world. 
It was but in the preceding reign that mar- 

[23] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

tyrs were burned at slow fires in the mar- 
ket place at SmitMeld, to the great delec- 
tation of the public. 

But even at this epoch when immorality 
and revelry were at their height, we can 
but admire the physical temperance and 
moral dignity of Shylock. How it con- 
trasts with the thoughtless prodigality of 
Bassanio, the petty taunting wit of Gra- 
tiano and the infamous robbery committed 
by Lorenzo ! 

According to Hazlitt, ** Shakespeare 
might have put into the mouth of Shylock 
the most high-flown sentiments of chival- 
rous generosity, he might have placed in 
him such acts of almost reckless self-sacri- 
fice as those attributed to Gerontus,^ but he 
would not have so cunningly won over the 
sympathies of the audience.'' 

Whatever we may think of this theory, 
we must admit that it is certainly clear, 
that, when the play is properly presented, 
Shylock invariably wins the hearers' sym- 
pathy. 

Shakespeare's Shylock is not the Shy- 

[24] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

lock which Landsdowne and Macklin por- 
trayed before the footlights. ^^He is not 
that decrepid old man, bent with age and 
ugly with mental deformity. He is not a 
character who grins with deadly malice 
and carries the venom of his heart con- 
gealed in the expression of his counte- 
nance. He is not sullen, morose, gloomy, 
inflexible, brooding over one idea — that 
of his hatred — and fixed on one unalter- 
able purpose — that of his revenge. No !'' 
* ^ Shylock, ' ' according to Irving, ^ * is distin- 
guished by dignity. He feels and acts as 
one of a noble but long oppressed nation. 
In point of all intelligence and culture he 
is far above the Christians with whom he 
came in contact, and the fact that as a Jew 
he is deemed far below them in the social 
scale, is gall and wormwood to his proud 
and sensitive spirit. ' ^ 11 

That Shylock all along has been falsely 
impersonated is not Shakespeare's fault 
but that of the actors. That Irving 's in- 
terpretation differs from that of Macklin 
and Landsdowne, is not due to any change 

[25] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

of the text but to a more careful study of 
the character and to a deeper insight into 
Shakespeare 's intentions. 

Heine tells us that when he first saw this 
play at Drury Lane, there stood behind 
him in the box a pale, fair Briton who, at 
the end of the fourth act, fell to weeping 
passionately, exclaiming, *^The poor man 
is wronged!'^ 

Is there any wonder 1 What sympathetic 
nature could resist a passionate outburst 
at such sacrilegious conduct as the court 
scene? Who could refrain from weeping 
at such base denial of justice, at such fla- 
grant and violent interpretation of the 
tenets of the law, and at such fiendish pen- 
alty for being deprived of one's rights? 

How would this same fair, sensitive 
spectator of Heine 's react to ^ ' The Jew of 
Malta''? A little study of Marlowe's play 
bears some relation to our present study 
irrespective of its influence on Shake- 
speare. Intensely popular for its variety 
and rapidity of action and its anti-Castilian 
atmosphere, it was not dependent for its 

[26] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

long run on the character of Barrabas, 
first because the Jewish problem during 
that time was too exoteric for universal 
interest, and secondly because the pop- 
ularity of Dr. Lopez made any satire on his 
race a dangerous experiment. This con- 
clusion is quite legitimate in view of the 
fact that after the decline of the prosperity 
of the Spanish physician the play was re- 
vived with temporary enthusiasm. 

Had Heine's fair theatre-goer seen 
**The Jew of Malta '^ her sensibilities 
would have been sadly lacerated, but she 
would have looked in vain for a character 
whom she might clothe with the mantle of 
her sympathy. She would grieve at the 
desperation of the Jews of Malta, forced 
to renounce their faith or suffer confisca- 
tion and torture, were she not so blindly 
orthodox as to consider even such a nom- 
inal adoption of Christianity a blessing at 
any price and were the types of Judaism 
she met not too revolting to be human. 

Had she lived a little later or a little 
earlier, she would have shuddered at the 

[27] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

sacrilege of Abigail in the nunnery to 
which her father's house had been con- 
verted. But she could sooner sympathize 
with Titus Andronicus when he serves the 
sons of Tamora in a pie than with Barra- 
bas when his revenge against the Chris- 
tians encompasses the death of his daugh- 
ter ; and she would have swooned, no doubt, 
at the final gloating of his enemies over 
his sufferings in the scalding cauldron. 

If Shakespeare were influenced by any 
consideration of comparative ethics in tak- 
ing up a similar theme while the memory 
of ^^The Jew of Malta'' was still fresh in 
the minds of the theatre-going public, it 
would hardly be worth while for him to 
apotheosize anti-Semitism. The Jewish 
element, as far as he was concerned, was 
occasional, if not actually unintentional, in 
an effort to portray a sounder justification 
of Christianity than that of the revengeful, 
intriguing, betraying creatures of Mar- 
lowe. The generalizations of Portia in her 
plea for mercy were probably more sincere 
and serious in his mind than Shylock's 

[28] 



! 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

individual rantings for revenge. At this 
point also lie adds one more defect in the 
verisimilitude of Shylock's racial integ- 
rity. Shylock might well have uttered the 
Mosaic justification of ^* An eye for an eye ; 
a tooth for tooth ^^ but the most intensive 
search through the Pentateuch would re- 
veal no interpretation of this law which 
would demand or permit, ^^A life for a pal- 
try debt; death for the debtor.'' 

The very fact that Shylock is supposed 
to stand for the letter of the law would 
hinder so disproportionate a penalty. *^An 
eye for an eye ; no more. A tooth for a tooth ; 
no more. The debt which thou owest me and 
the interest thereof, it shall suffice.'* 

With an eye more for justice than for 
dramatic effect, let us review the decision 
which closes the play. 

The relationship between creditor and 
debtor has not as yet been established. The 
worthy Bassanio craves a loan of three 
thousand ducats from the wealthy money 
lender. The latter, nourishing the stings 
of years past, is unwilling to take the word 

[29] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

of one who has so ably pictured himself 
unworthy of the confidence of the trusting 
public. He demands security for so large 
a loan. Shylock, Antonio and Bassanio 
then enter into an agreement which takes 
form in the execution and delivery of a 
bond with its penal clause containing a 
condition for the payment of three 
thousand ducats. It might be remarked 
here that the penal clause in the said bond 
was of an unusual and almost barbarous 
nature, inasmuch as it provided that in 
case of default the said Shylock was to 
have one pound of flesh taken from An- 
tonio's body. Hunter, in his Shakespear- 
ean studies, has given carefully selected 
models of the forms of bonds legal and 
popular at that time and as divergent from 
that between Shylock and Antonio as those 
of today would be. Other records show 
that similar bonds were actually made but 
never forfeited. But no amount of pre- 
cedent, even if it could be discovered, 
could justify so heinous an offence against 
jurisprudence. 

[30] 



I 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

When the three thousand ducats in ques- 
tion becomes due, default is made in its pay- 
ment and Shylock demands the penalty of 
his bond. With natural reluctance, the 
bounden parties refuse to make good the 
terms of the bond. Shylock hastens to 
court and presents his case before the 
reigning Duke of Venice, who, unwilling 
to pass judgment on so delicate a question, 
seeks legal aid in the person of the dis- 
guised Portia, ^he case comes on for trial 
and the fair Portia holds : 

First: That the bond is valid and that 
Shylock is entitled to the penalty it exacts. 

Second : That in executing the terms of 
the agreement he is not to take more or 
less than his pound of flesh nor is he to 
spill one single drop of blood in taking 
possession of his property. 

Third: That Shylock is guilty of a 
crime subject to capital punishment in 
practising against the life of a Christian. 

Fourth : That in pronouncing judgment 
on the said Shylock for his crime the sen- 
tence of the court be that he shall give one 

[31] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

half of his possessions to Antonio and that 
the other half shall go to the state, and 
that his life shall be at the mercy of the 
Duke. 

This famous decision, half civil decree 
and half criminal sentence, bears not the 
slightest semblance to any principle of 
law or equity ever recognized in any civ- 
ilized country. The inconsistency of the 
whole verdict is so apparent that it would 
be showing it too much respect to charac- 
terize it as transparent farce. To say that 
the bond is valid, legal and capable of en- 
forcement in a court of justice and in the 
same breath convict one of a crime in 
accepting so valid an instrument is too 
ludicrous for extended comment. 

It seems strange that the presiding jus- 
tice should have overlooked the well es- 
tablished legal maxim that an instrument 
containing terms and conditions which con- 
travene the public policy of the state is 
null and void. 

The stipulations in this agreement not 
only shock the moral sense of the commun- 

[32] 



1 



« 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

ity but according to the court itself pro- 
vide for the commission of a capital crime. 
Under no circumstances could it be con- 
sidered capable of enforcement. 

Admitting, for the purpose of argument, 
that the bond was valid and that the obli- 
gee was entitled to his pound of flesh, we 
find the court again erred in restricting 
Shylock to strict compliance and to the nat- 
ural interpretation of the agreement. If 
it is a familiar rule of construction that 
the right to do a certain act confers the 
right to the necessary incidents of that act, 
omne majorum in se omne minorum con- 
tinet, that is, the grater includes the less, 
the conceded right to cut a pound of flesh 
rightfully includes the blood necessarily 
flowing in consequence.^^ The only evidence 
we have that Shylock practised against 
the life of a Christian was the fact that he 
had entered into the agreement heretofore 
mentioned. And if such was considered a 
crime, we cannot fail to wonder at the ap- 
parent injustice of the law which convicts 
one of several parties to the agreement of 

[33] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

a crime and rewards the others for their 
connection in the committal of the same. 

If the execution of the bond was crim- 
inal, both Antonio and Bassanio were par- 
ticipes criminis. They were sane, in full 
possession of their faculties, and reputed 
shrewd and capable of making a contract. 

Portia again erred in overlooking the 
well established doctrine of jurisprudence 
that all who enter into an agreement 
against the laws of the state are guilty and 
principals of the crime. The same punish- 
ment that befell Shylock should in justice 
have been meted out to all the parties of the 
deed. Inasmuch as the court did not grant 
him the right to cut the pound of flesh and 
since he did not actually cut it, he could 
not be punished for an attempt on life. 

Dr. Ihring, an eminent jurist, in his 
book, ^^The Struggle for Law^^, speaks of 
Shylock 's wrongs as follows : ** *I crave the 
law. ' In these four words the poet has de- 
scribed the relation of the law in the sub- 
jective to law in the objective sense of the 

[34] 



I 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

term and the meaning of the struggle for 
the law in a manner better than any philos- 
opher of the law could have done it. These 
four words change Shylock's claim into a 
question of the law of Venice. 

**To what mighty giant dimensions does 
not the weak man grow when he speaks 
these words! It is no longer the Jew de- 
manding his pound of flesh ; it is the law of 
Venice itself knocking at the door of jus- 
tice, for his rights and the law of Venice 
are one and the same; they both stand 
or fall together. And when he finally suc- 
cumbs under the weight of the judge's de- 
cision, who wipes out his rights by a shock- 
ing piece of pleasantry; when we see him 
pursued by bitter scorn, bowed, broken, 
tottering on his way, — ^who can help feel- 
ing that in him the law of Venice is 
humbled! That is not the Jew Shylock 
who moves painfully away but the typical 
figure of the Jew in the middle ages, that 
pariah of society who cried in vain for jus- 
tice. He is only the despised mediaeval 
Jew. 

[35] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

^*The jurist can only say that the bond 
was in itself null and void, because its 
provisions were contrary to good morals.'' 

But failing to take this ground, one may 
admit that ^4t was wretched subterfuge, 
a miserable piece of pettifoggery, to deny 
the right to shed blood in cutting the flesh. 
Just as well might the judge deny to 
the person whose right to an easement he 
acknowledged, the right to leave footprints 
on the land, because this was not expressly 
stipulated for in the grant.'' 

This perversion of liberty and law was 
symbolic if not illustrative of the standing 
of every Jew in the courts of the whole 
realm of Christendom. It discloses the 
treatment that was meted out to the poor 
mediaeval Jew who knocked in vain at the 
door of Justice. The despised race was 
like an alien among the Christians; a 
Jewish youth, like a bastard among legiti- 
mate children. Could Benjamin Disraeli 
ever forget or forgive the cruelties he en- 
dured during his school days? "" 

[36] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Law has been said to be the moral 
sense of the community as sanctioned 
by its concensus of forbearance as 
to the acts of individuals. We cannot 
help shuddering at the shocking status 
of the morality at the time of which 
Shakespeare writes. With the same feel- 
ings we abhor the very contact of the semi- 
barbarians living in the city. Thus it is 
that Shylock rises so magnificently above 
his environment. He was tender, kind and 
gentle unto those who respected his ex- 
istence. Loving Jessica more than his own 
soul, Shylock wrapped himself in thoughts 
of his only daughter, the picture of his 
lamented Leah. How pathetically and 
sublimely does that profound poet, Heine, 
betray his feelings for Shylock! *^ Wan- 
dering hunter after dreams that I am, 
I looked around everywhere on the Rialto 
to see if I could not find Shylock. I would 
have told him something that would have 
pleased him, namely: that his cousin, 
Herr von Shylock, in Paris, had been the 
mightiest baron in Christendom, invested 

[37] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

by her Catholic majesty with that order of 
Isabella which was founded to celebrate 
the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from 
Spain. But I found him nowhere on the 
Eialto and determined to seek my old ac- 
quaintance in the synagogue. The Jews 
were just then celebrating their Day of 
Atonement, and they stood enveloped in 
their white taliths with uncanny motions 
of the head, looking almost like an assem- 
blage of ghosts. There the poor Jews 
stood, fasting and praying from the earliest 
morning ; since the evening before they had 
taken neither food nor drink, and had pre- 
viously begged pardon of all their ac- 
quaintances for any wrongs they might 
have done them in the course of the year, 
that God might thereby also forgive them 
their wrongs, — a beautiful custom, which, 
curiously enough, is found among this 
people, strangers though they be to the 
teaching of Jesus. After I had looked all 
around the synagogue, I nowhere dis- 
covered the face of Shylock. And yet I felt 
he must be hidden under one of those white 

[38] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

talitlis, praying more fervently than his 
fellow believers, looking up with stormy, 
nay frantic, wildness to the throne of 
Jehovah, the hard God King. I saw him 
not. But towards evening when, according 
to the Jewish faith, the gates of heaven 
are shut and no prayer can then obtain 
admittance, I heard a voice, with a ripple 
of tears that were never wept by eyes. It 
was a sob that could come only from a 
breast that held in it all the martyrdom 
which for eighteen centuries had been 
borne by a whole tortured people. It was 
the death-rattle of a soul sinking down 
dead tired at heaven's gate and I seemed 
to know the voice, and felt I had heard it 
long ago when in utter despair it moaned 
out, then as now, ^Jessica, my girl; Jes- 
sica, my child. ' ' ' 

^ Shakespeare, grand lover of justice, 
has attempted here to champion the cause 
of the Jew and to batter down with his 
mighty rams of truth the persecution of 
ages. Not only does he present his wrongs 
to the civilized world, but with charming 

[39] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

eloquence he gives a touch of the human to 
a type hitherto regarded as monstrous. 

But in his zeal to penetrate human 
nature conscientiously and to interpret its 
most delicately characterizing traits, he 
has made a most serious mistake in de- 
lineating Shylock as a Jewish character. 

This leads us back into Shakespeare's 
intention in writing the play. 

One critic finds as its fundamental theme 
the doctrine of the pernicious power of 
gold. Another sees the Damon and Pythias 
story. Another discovers that revenge is 
far superior as a paternal instinct to 
money-getting greed. Another, still, finds 
Shakespeare, the great Christian poet, 
teaching the superiority of Jesus' pro- 
fessors over the Jews. Yet another com- 
pletely reverses this latter theory and 
sees a powerful argument for religious 
tolerance. 

But as we look more deeply into the play, 
we find that this drama shows the chief 
characteristic of all works of art in hav- 
ing no motif. Dante never wrote with a 

[40] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

moral, yet we find countless morals in 
his Divine Comedy. We never find a so- 
called ^^ cause'' propagated in the works 
of Thackeray or Browning. They, like 
Shakespeare, deal with man. They look 
below the surface and dissect human na- 
ture. Shakespeare, we contend, was a 
psychological philosopher. He knew the 
virtues and the vices of which man is 
capable. He knew the situation in which 
Shylock was placed; he knew the laws of 
cause and effect and treated him accord- 
ingly. But Shakespeare failed when he 
applied the general law to the Jew in the 
belief that it affected all human nature 
alike. He overlooked or underestimated 
the differentiating force of circumstances. 
r" In making Shylock a Jew, Shakespeare 
trespassed against Jewish law and the 
spirit of history. He erred in making 
Shylock eager for his pound of flesh and 
at the same time a follower of the Mosaic 
Law. In the sixth section of the ninth 
chapter of Genesis we find a direct prohibi- 
tion against cutting flesh from human be- 

[411 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

ings. ^*Who sheddeth man's blood, by 
man shall his blood be shed: for in the 
image of God made He man.'' This 
Biblical instruction has been scrupulously 
guarded for years, so scrupulously that to 
this day, in the family of the orthodox 
Jew, not a drop of blood is tasted nor 
even meat from animals that feed on blood. 

^* Perhaps one of the most marked 
characteristics of the Jew," according to 
Leroy Beaulieu, *4s his horror of blood. 
It has been instilled into him, little by 
little, by his dietary laws. Not only must 
the orthodox Jew abstain from blood, but 
all animals, small or large, destined for 
his food, must be killed by the Shochet ap- 
pointed for the task." ^' 

What unprejudiced person would not 
understand Shylock in his search for re- 
venge ? What unbiased man would not feel 
at least an intellectual sympathy for the 
Jew of the middle ages, if he craved for 
revenge? Yet while cherishing so much 
justification for retaliating, he has been the 
last to demand retaliation. *^The savage 

[42] 



i 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

and lustful brute that lurks at the bottom 
of every man's nature shows itself less 
frequently in the Jew: it has been cowed 
into submission.'' 

The Jew has neither the southern fire 
nor the passions that characterize the Slav 
or the Italian. He is not as a rule im- 
pulsive, nor subject to sudden nervous 
shocks. He is less obedient to instinct than 
to reason. Trained in the law of his fathers 
and schooled in patience, he knows how to 
bide his time and thus control himself. 

The picture of Shylock, sharpening his 
knife on his shoe, is so contrary and an- 
tagonistic to the character of the Jew and 
his surroundings that it is almost impossi- 
ble to think that Shakespeare 's genius was 
so deceived. 

The Jew of the middle ages, despised, 
outcast, his power crushed, his spirit 
cowed, could not even have thought of cut- 
ting a pound of flesh from the body of 
Antonio, the Italian nobleman. The very 
thought that the despised alien, scarcely 
tolerated, could boldly march up to any 

[43] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

court in the middle ages and ** crave the 
law'' is preposterous to the historian. 
Dare a Jew whom all revile and abuse de- 
mand and insist upon justice before the 
reigning duke and threaten the city of 
Venice with the loss of its charter? If 
the law granted him the privilege of re- 
senting his wrongs in that manner, the 
trial would not have arisen and ^^The 
Merchant of Venice ' \ perhaps, never have 
been written. 

Still it is claimed by Snider and other 
critics that Shylock in craving for the 
pound of flesh was following the law of the 
Mosaic code, inasmuch as it taught the 
doctrine, * * eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand 
for hand, foot for foot. ' ' We have already 
reviewed this law from one aspect. From 
another it seems at first sight terribly vin- 
dictive, and conducive to a fostering of 
the passion for revenge. But when we 
consider the time when this law was en- 
acted, we can conceive its spirit of mercy. 

In an age when strong passions and law- 
lessness prevailed, no better means could 

[44] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

have been found to curb the spirit of might 
against right and to protect the weak 
against the strong. Far from fostering a 
revengeful and unforgiving spirit, as many 
have declared, the law had quite the con- 
trary tendency. Before the giving of the 
law, a license equivalent to la vendetta was 
the ruling principle of retribution. Yet it 
is a matter of absolute certainty that this 
law was used only as a threat and never 
practically enforced. Even before the ad- 
vent of Christianity, history teaches us 
that it had long been set aside for money 
considerations. 

Shakespeare, when he made Shylock re- 
nounce his faith with so little reluctance, 
again erred in delineating the Jew. The 
persistency of Jewish character through- 
out history has been the subject of frequent 
comment. It was Mordecai who refused 
to bend the knee before Haman. How 
much more faithfully has the French dra- 
matist in *^ Esther'* painted the Jewish 
character! Moses himself calls the Jews 
a stiff-necked race. Their will has grown 

[45] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 



stronger during the ages of persecution 
and has carved out for them the immortal 
motto, **In spite of everything.'^ It is not 
necessary to mention the Jewish martyrs 
who died for their religion. "We need not 
go back to ancient history to produce the 
names of the Maccabeans. Within our own 
times and within a period of ten years, 
** twelve thousand Jews, twelve thousand 
in the Ehenish towns alone, were massacred 
for having refused baptism. '' '* It is a well 
recorded fact that in 1492, hundreds of 
thousands of Jews rather than abnegate 
their faith gave up their property and en- 
tered into exile. No matter how severe the 
lot of the Jew, neither his senses nor his 
spirit forsook him. Unable to command re- 
spect from the outside world, he took refuge 
in his Tor ah and his Talmud. During all his 
days of oppression never did he lose faith 
in the superiority of Israel. ^*He was 
always proud of his people, his religion 
and his God. In the presence of his Chris- 
tian or Mohammedan oppressors he seemed 
to himself like a prince, sold into slavery 

[46] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

and condemned to degrading labors by- 
cruel taskmasters.'*^" Ever believing them- 
selves the chosen people of God and the 
moral teachers of mankind, they have clung 
to their faith with marvelous tenacity. 

While nations and dynasties have dis- 
appeared, Israel, strong as ever, survives. 
She has emerged successfully from crises 
which would prove fatal to apparently- 
strong creeds. She has a strange vitality 
and has given confirmation to the legends 
and myths which predicted for her a life of 
eternity. 

In face of such evidence it seems strange 
that Shakespeare *s vast knowledge and true 
instinct were so hampered by the limita- 
tions of his age. There are those who say 
that Shakespeare must have had Jewish ac- 
quaintances of some degree of intimacy 
with whom he consulted, and they prove 
this supposition by reference to his use of 
proper names. This very aptness in nam- 
ing his characters seems to us to show that 
his knowledge of the Jews was at its best 
academic. Jessica, supposed to be a cor- 

[47] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

ruption of Iscah, ^^she who looks out of 
the window/' is almost too appropriate 
for one who is bidden — 



"Clamber not you to the casements then, 
Nor thrust your head into the public street 
To gaze on Christian fools with varnished 
faces. " ^ ^ 

In 1592 Greene wrote of ** cormorants 
or usurers." The most superficial access 
to Hebraic literature would have helped 
Shakespeare in his choice of the word 
* ^ shalak, ' ' a cormorant. No Jewish money- 
lender would allow himself the handicap 
of so sinister a name, nor could the cog- 
nomen be other than an artificial effort to 
make name and character correspond, other 
plausible derivations notwithstanding. 

Again in looking over the text one never 
fails to be impressed with the idea that 
Shylock is both a miser and a usurer. His 
servant complains of maltreatment and 
lack of food. Exactly the same device is 
employed by Eichard Cumberland in * * The 
Jew,'' of whom Mrs. Inchbald writes, **A 

[48] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

virtuous miser is as much a wonder in the 
production as a virtuous Jew, and Mr. 
Cumberland has in one single part rescued 
two unpopular characters from the stigma 
under which they both innocently suffered. ' ' 
Deeply rooted as is the popular delusion 
that every Jew was born a miser and 
usurer, it cannot when treated from the 
historical standpoint be allowed a higher 
place than that of a general prejudice. 
Talmudical and Biblical literature show 
clearly that the Jewish race were a people 
of farmers. *^The poetry of the Bible bor- 
rows its colors from the vineyard, the 
fields, the harvest, the plow — in brief, from 
the occupations of men who till the soil. 
The punishments threatened are always 
such as would affect agriculture.'^ "" The 
Talmud tells us that it is the duty of every 
parent to teach the son a manual trade, 
lest he become a companion of thieves. 

It is not true that for twenty centuries 
IsraePs soul was absorbed in banking and 
speculation. Joseph, the father of Jesus, 
was a carpenter. The great teachers of 

[49] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Israel made their living at the cobbler's 
bench, by the baker's oven and by means 
of their hands. Spinoza, the lens grinder 
of Amsterdam, was not the only Jew em- 
ployed in this art. 

Judaism most emphatically condemns the 
method of making money by usury. She 
inculcates principles diametrically opposed 
to this manner of money getting. David 
in his fifteenth psalm reviles the *^man who 
putteth out his money to usury. ' ' The 
misconception of the nature of money 
and capital and the misinterpretation on 
the part of the mediaeval church of the 
spiritual law led to the restriction placed 
on taking interest for money loaned. 

But commerce made it imperative to dis- 
regard this law. Therefore, in order to 
save the Christian conscience, the Jew, who 
was shut out from every honorable walk 
of life, from professions and from public 
career, but who was not under the common 
law, was forced to become the money 
lender. The law at that time not only 
restricted him from honorable and cultured 

[60] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

society, but confined him to money lending 
in order to recompense his oppressors. 

The distinction between interest and 
usury is only modern. Interest until a few 
years ago was usury. What is usury in 
one state is not usury in another, as rates 
of interest advance or lower, as capital 
increases or decreases. But the Jews were 
not the only people engaged in money lend- 
ing or charged with usury. There were 
many Christians who laughed at the ordi- 
nances of the church and engaged in this 
business. 

But when Jessica accuses her father of 
ungentle feeling and has so little affection 
for him, it may be easily seen that there is 
a side of Jewish life that Shakespeare 
never knew, — the domestic. The command- 
ment that tells us to honor our father and 
mother is considered by every Jew as al- 
most superfluous. They cannot imagine 
any people who do not honor, love, revere 
and obey both father and mother. Not 
only was this motto of domestic happiness 
faithfully followed in the days of persecu- 

[51] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

tion, but it was, as we observe, an inspira- 
tion to unbosom the pent up feeling of long 
endured misery. Barred from the confi- 
dence of his superiors, suspicious of all 
those who approached him, hunted and 
chased by his enemies, he became a man of 
inward life. Feelings of joy, of sorrow, 
of happiness and misery were secretly 
guarded in the dungeons of his breast. But 
misery loves company, and to his own 
family, chased and hunted like himself, he 
unbarred the door which locked his secret 
emotions. With them he was gentle, kind, 
loving, even as a ferocious lion is to his 
young. To his wife and children he re- 
vealed all that was noble and affectionate 
in his nature. 

Jewish home life presents a beautiful 
picture. Seated about the fire at eventide, 
the father and husband opens unto his own 
the burdensome history of the day. The 
Torah, from which he draws his consola- 
tion, is ever at his side. His children are 
taught to respect its teachings and inspired 
with the ambition to become learned in the 

[52] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Law. He is always ready to discuss the 
merits of his religion with his children and 
to answer all questions in reference to the 
subject. Temperate, patient, gentle, regu- 
lar in habits, how could the home life of 
the Jew be otherwise than pleasant 1 Pos- 
sessing all the attributes that make up an 
affectionate nature, how could he but love 
his family? No drunken brawls, no violent 
outbursts of temper, no coarse speech or 
brutal manners ever disturb the felicity of 
his home. Of but few vices and many do- 
mestic virtues, all the inmates of his abode 
are bound together by ties of natural 
affection. 

Is Shylock^s home then a Jemsh home! 
Is Jessica a Jewish girl? 

* * The Hebrew will turn Christian, ' ' says 
Antonio ; * ^ he grows kind. ' ^ The great doc- 
trine of human brotherhood, — the doctrine 
in which it is claimed that all religion and 
all morality are summed up — was long 
taught in Judaism and given to the world 
before the origin of Christianity. ^ ^ Why, ' ' 
asks the Talmud, **was there but one 

[53] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 



Adam in the beginning T^ Eabbis an- 
swered, *'It is to show that all men have 
the same father and that one people or 
creed should not be able to say to another, 
^our ancestors were richer or greater than 
thine/ '' When a Gentile came to Hillel 
and asked to be instructed in the tenets of 
Judaism during the short time he could 
stand on one foot, he was given this prin- 
ciple as the essence of Judaism: ** What- 
ever is displeasing unto thee, do not unto 
others : this is the foundation of Judaism — 
the rest is commentary. Go and learn/' 
Thus the picture of Shylock is so antag- 
onistic to the Jewish character that it need 
not even be defended. If it is, so to speak, 
idiopathic and not intended as representa- 
tive of the race, all the more pity that it 
has for so many centuries and to so many 
readers served as an epitome of all that is 
Jewish. 

Shakespeare, with all his ingenuity, was 
yet subject to the law of environment. 
Even that myriad-minded one was ham- 
pered by his surrounding conditions. Liv- 

[54] 



r 



I 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

ing in a period when his knowledge of the 
Jew must have been deficient, he could not 
rise above the prejudices of his age. Three 
hundred years before his time, in 1290, 
Jews had been banished from England, and 
were not readmitted till after his day. He 
must, therefore, have derived his knowl- 
edge indirectly, perhaps from what he 
read or heard or saw depicted on the 
stage. He had probably heard of the in- 
famous charge that the Jews used Chris- 
tian blood for certain ritual practices, but 
did not know that the same charges had 
been made against the Christians in the 
early centuries. He knew that there were 
usurers amongst the Jews, but he probably 
had never heard of the Lombard rascals, 
and of how the Roman law protected their 
claims however unjust. That he was 
prejudiced against the Jews there can be 
no doubt — though less than most English 
writers, since we can find such passages 
in his writings as, *^A Jew would have 
wept to see such parting,*' ^^ or when in the 
witch scene of ^* Macbeth, '* he requires the 

[55] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

^^iver of blaspheming Jew/' for the 
devilish practices. 

On the other hand, many critics claim 
that one Dr. Roderigo Lopez, a reputed 
Jew, and a court physician to Elizabeth, 
furnished Shakespeare with his model for 
Shylock. This famous physician was un- 
justly accused by one Don Antonio of an 
attempt upon the life of the queen. De- 
spite his innocence he was convicted and 
mercilessly executed. Shakespeare might 
not have known this man's innocence; he 
might not have known that this Dr. Lopez, 
although a descendant of Spanish Jews, 
was in fact a Christian. Then again it is 
maintained by other critics that Shake- 
speare might have visited the continent 
where he might have come in contact with 
the Jews of Venice. This theory need not 
necessarily be true, inasmuch as all the 
information about Italian customs and 
topography in his plays could be gleaned 
from at least two books popular during 
his time: *^The History of Italic,'' by 
William Thomas, and ^^The Garden of 

[56] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Pleasure," by James Sanford, either of 
which would have been as valuable an 
interpreter as the works of Herodotus. 
Even assuming that Shakespeare actually 
visited Italy (in 1593 when the theatres 
were closed on account of the plague), one 
must admit that he has grossly misrepre- 
sented the existing relations between the 
Jews and the Christians of that charming 
city. 

^^ Judaism in Shakespeare's days was 
like a rich kernel covered and concealed by 
crusts deposited one upon another, and by 
extraneous matter, so that only very few 
could recognize its true character. The 
Sinaitic and prophetic kernel of thought 
had long been covered over with a three- 
fold layer of Sopheric, Mishnaitic and 
Talmudic explanations and restrictions. 
People no longer asked what was taught in 
the fundamental Sinaitic law, or what was 
considered important by the prophets : 
they scarcely regarded what the Talmud 
decided to be essential or non-essential: 
the Rabbis, being the highest authorities, 

[57] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

decided what was Judaism. ''"" Among 
such Rabbinical authorities at Venice were 
men of the stamp of Luzzatto and Modena. 

The latter, possessed of various and 
varied faculties, won a place in the most 
exclusive Christian society. In his bril- 
liancy and magnanimity he outshone all 
his contemporaries. Learned in theology 
and philosophy, he taught both Jews and 
Christians. Amongst those who sat at his 
feet were the French bishop, Jacob Planta- 
vicius, and the Christian Kabalist, Jacob 
Gaffarelli. He was even permitted to in- 
scribe his works with flattering dedications 
to the most powerful nobles. His close 
contact with the Christians ably refutes 
the apparent hatred displayed by the citi- 
zens of Venice towards the Jews. Living 
about Shakespeare's time (1571-1649), he 
best illustrates the author's limited know- 
ledge of Jewish life at Venice. 

In the city of Venice, the largest Italian 
community next to that of Rome, consisting 
of six thousand souls, there were cultured 
Jews enjoying social intercourse with 

[58] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Christian society. They not only were 
interested in Italian and general European 
culture, but vied with their Gentile 
brethren in literary achievements. There 
were no walls of the Ghetto to separate the 
Jewish from the Christian population. 
The Christian inhabitants of Venice, the 
sailors, porters and workmen, were far 
more friendly toward the Jews than in 
other Christian cities. There were no cries 
of *'Hep! Hep! Hep!" nor was the 
serenity of the place broken by internal 
hostilities. It is said that the Jewish man- 
ufacturers employed over four thousand 
Christian workmen, whose very existence 
depended upon their Jewish employers 
alone. When the lagoon city was al- 
most devastated by a pestilence and the 
inhabitants were starving, Jews came for- 
ward and formed societies for the main- 
tenance of the poor. When in this well- 
policed city, the reins of the government 
became looser and looser and threatened 
to fall from the hands of those in power, 
Jewish capitalists voluntarily offered their 

[59] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

money to the state to prevent embarrass- 
ment/" 

Not only did the Jewish men rival the 
cultivated classes among the Christians in 
the elegant use of the Italian language, but 
the Jewish women more than outclassed 
their Christian sisters as versifiers of 
no mean ability. Amongst the Jewish 
poetesses of this period the most prominent 
are Deborah Ascarelli and Sarah Copia 
Sullam. The first, the wife of Joseph 
Ascarelli, was renowned for translating 
Hebrew hymns into sublime Italian 
strophes. An Italian poet addressed her 
in verses thus: 

"Others may sing of great trophies; 
Thou glorifiest thy people." 

The spiritual poetess, Sarah Copia, excited 
a great amount of attention in her time. 
The only child of a loving father, she was 
educated liberally and devoted herself to 
literature and science. To this inclination 
she remained faithful even after her mar- 
riage with Sullam. Her exceptional ability 

[60] 



I 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

as a poetess brought her great renown. 
She not only was a favorite among her own 
people, but was sought after by the best 
Christian families. 

Shakespeare could not have known the 
Jews of Venice. He might not have known 
that the story of the pound of flesh which 
was moulded into ^^The Merchant of 
Venice/' was an old one, almost as old as 
myth and legend, and in one form or an- 
other quite common among ancient oriental 
and occidental people. "" He might not 
have known that originally Shylock was a 
Christian. The story appears first in the 
romance of Dolopathos, which was written 
by the French troubadour, Herbers. He 
might not have even known that it passed 
from Dolopathos into the Gesta Eomano- 
rum, which was published in 1473. But 
whatever its original source, the villain is 
never a Jew, but a Gentile. 

Giovanni Fiorentino, in his II Pecorone, 
a collection made during the times of the 
bitterest Jewish persecutions, is the first 
to change the non- Jew into a Jew. Shake- 

[61] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

speare might not have heard the story told 
by Gregory Leti in his life of Pope Six- 
tus V. He might not have heard of that his- 
torically recorded wager that the news of 
the capture and sack of St. Domingo by 
Drake was false, a wager in which Secchi, 
the Christian, and Sampson Ceneda, the 
Jew, were the principals. The stake, if 
Ceneda loses, is a pound of flesh, but if Sec- 
chi the Christian loses, it is one thousand 
scudi. The Jews loses, and the Christian 
swears he will have his forfeit. The Jew 
finally appeals to the Pope, who, finding 
the wager contrary to good morals, im- 
poses a heavy fine on each of the parti- 
cipes. So it is lucidly clear that after all 
the original Shylock is Secchi the Chris- 
tian, and the historical Antonio, Ceneda the 
Jew. 

A study of German criticism of Shake- 
speare for the last quarter of a century 
shows such marked inconsistencies in the 
conception of Shylock as to surprise us 
that they treated with so little seriousness 
the only solution to the so called Shylock 
[62] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

Problem. He is a Levantine Jew, say the 
critics; he is the representative of the 
Jewish race in its highest form; he is the 
remnant of the lowest outcasts of the race ; 
*nhe last dying spark of a fire that can 
still scorch, wither and destroy, but can- 
not warm. ^ ' Shylock cannot at one 
and the same time be the highest and 
the lowest of his race, and those doctors 
who disagree thereon know nothing of 
their patient. Von Honigman, quoting an 
English critic, says it would be impossible 
to imagine Shylock of any other nation- 
ality without losing the meaning of the 
play. As well might one say that Hamlet 
could have been none other than a Dane or 
that the point of Othello would have been 
lost had he not been a Moor. Shylock is 
the direct descendant of the money-lender 
of Latin comedy, who was as likely to be a 
Greek. 

**Into this happy throng,^' says the West- 
minster Eeview of **The Merchant of 
Venice, ' * * * the dramatist thrusts the morose 
and malicious usurer, who is intended to 

[63] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

be laughed at and defeated not because he 
is a Jew, but because he is a curmudgeon. ' ' 
For no other reason is the Japanese equiv- 
alent for **The Merchant of Venice", 
**The Judgment Over the Pawning of Hu- 
man Flesh'', popular in Japan, where it 
would gain nothing by its anti-Semitism 
and where Shylock appears as an old fisher- 
man without losing any of his dramatic 
value. 

Although * * The Merchant of Venice ' ' has 
been charged with many instances of his- 
torical and literary inaccuracy, we are 
bound to give Shakespeare credit for an 
intention to vindicate rather than to vilify 
the Jew. Although the master of dra- 
matists makes Shylock fulfill the demands 
of public opinion, still he protests 
against the cruel treatment and unuttera- 
ble persecution of a class of human beings 
too little understood. 

At least, then, let us give thanks to a 
writer who has given the world so faithful 
an advocate of the Jew. Those instances 
of inaccuracy in literature which tend to 

[64] 



SHYLOCK NOT A JEW 

give a false interpretation of the com- 
posite Jewish character are becoming more 
generally emphasized and recognized. But 
if the world is tardy in acknowledging 
these mistakes, we shall again re-echo the 
words of Shylock: 

''For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." 



[65] 



APPENDIX 



Index to Notes 

Page 

3. ^Leroy Beaulieu, On Israel and Other Nations. 

5. ^Graetz, History of the Jews, Vol. V, pages 
400-500. 

3. ^Harris, Lectures ofi Popular Jewish Ques- 
tions. 

15. *Act III, scene I. 

18. ^Reminiscences of Am)erica. 

19. * Heine, Mddchen und Frauen. 

20. 'Act I, scene 3. 

20. ^Heine, Mddchen und Frauen. 

24. ^Gerontns, one of the dramatis personae of 

The Three Ladies of London, produced in 
1584. He is represented as having every vir- 
tue and is introduced in a trial scene in 
which his generous forbearance is brought 
strongly into contrast with the meanness and 
turpitude of his Christian debtor. 

25. '■''Theatre, December, 1879. 

[67] 



\A.5I 



APPENDIX 

Page 
33. ^^Haynes, Outlines of Equity, page 19. 

36. ^^ These cruelties were vividly pictured by 
Disraeli in his two works. Contarini Flem- 
ing and Vivian Grey. 

42. ^^Page 215, On Israel and Other Nations. 

46. ^* Chief Rabbi Lehman in UUniverse Israelite, 

November, 1891. 

47. ^^Leroy Beaulieu. 

48. ""Act II, scene 5. 

49. ''Dr. E. G. Hirsch, Reform Advocate, Feb- 

ruary 6, 1892. 

55. ^^Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II, scene 3. 

58. '^Graetz, History of the Jews, page 51. 

60. ^"Graetz, History of the Jews, page 61. 

61. ^'Krauskopf, Shylock, Unhistorie Jew. 



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